Your advice in the past has helped tremendously and I thank you for that. I now need your guidance once again.
On Friday December 2nd, 2016 I went to the VA outpatient clinic in Knoxville, TN for a follow up on, what I thought at the time, was an sprained ankle. My Primary care manager never asked about my ankle but went straight into questions about my depression and PTSD. This immediately puts me in a negative thought pattern mode and she recognizes this and continues further with questions if I want to harm myself. I answer "no" to all questions about harming myself or anyone else at any time. I also answer questions about my past suicidal attempts, which happened nearly seven years ago and at a very low point in my life. She then suggests that I speak with a social worker and that she would find someone available to speak with immediately.
The social worker also asks if I had plans of harming myself and I answer "no". She recommends therapy and medication as possible solutions to help. Shes then asks more questions about my PTSD and now I feel that she is trying to have me involuntarily committed and I start showing signs of mental degradation. I have been committed before , and with warrant the first time, but this time I didn't feel it necessary. I must add that I fear being committed more than any of my PTSD fears . She then asks me "what would make you better then?" I answered "death" because I know for a fact that my afflictions have no cure. She , without question about my answer, has me committed. I never meant for that answer to suggest that I would actually harm myself.
I then get paraded through the VA facility by police escort and taken by ambulance to Parkwest Medical . The next 15-16 hours I am put in solitary confinement. I answered questions from the attending physician at Parkwest about the want to harm myself or others, my answer was still "no". Medical records state that I refused two meal trays, but I was never offered a food tray nor water for my entire stay at Parkwest. I am then transported in the back of a police car, handcuffed, to VA Mountain Home in Johnson City, TN, two hours away. I spend the next days convincing nurses, chaplains, and doctors that what I said was a misunderstanding and I never had the intent of even wanting to harm myself or any other. But it was the weekend and the real doctors didn't come in until Monday.
When Monday arrived the doctors at the VA psychiatric ward in Johnson City recognized that I was no threat to myself or any other and released me. I was discharged on Tuesday December 6th only to come back to a shattered home. Two kids unable to know the truth about what happened to me. My wife, is let go from her place of employment for missing 3 work days due to having to care for the needs of the children while I was away. And then there is my mental state from all of this, and my new fear of seeking help from the VA.
Do I have a legitimate claim for personal injury?